Thursday, 29 October 2015

The
election results this weekend in Turkey will resonate far beyond the borders of
this country that finds itself at a critical fork in the road. Will Turkey
continue to be a country aspiring to establish a real rule of law and a vital
democracy with normal checks and balances? Or will it take the well-travelled authoritarian
road used by most countries in the region, the road that tolerates no dissent
and no challenge to unbridled power?

Most
of the polls indicate that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will
fail once again in its attempt to win enough deputies to form a single-party
government, frustrating President Tayyip Erdoğan’s goal of creating an
all-powerful presidency. Normally such an outcome would result in a new
government being formed as a coalition of two or more parties. But these are
not ‘normal’ times, and there is real
doubt that Erdoğan would be any more amenable to a coalition now than he was in
June. The personal and political stakes are too high for him to surrender
easily the total control he has exercised for the past 13 years.

In
large part the election hinges on the success of Erdoğan’s efforts to demonise
the Kurds inside and outside Turkey as the main threat to the country’s
stability. As Turkish journalist Cengiz Çandar noted last night in a lecture at
the Middle East Centre of St. Antony’s College Oxford, Erdoğan blames the Kurds
for blocking an absolute AKP majority and thwarting his goal of a strong
presidency. The Kurdish-based HDP party won 13% of the vote in June, capturing
not just its base of about 8% but also much of the Kurdish vote that had
previously gone to the AKP. Analysts
estimate that what’s left of the Turkish liberal intelligentsia added another
1% - 1.5% of the HDP total.

Since
the June elections Erdoğan has done everything he can to blame Kurds in general for the dramatic increase in violence since then. Forget the inconvenient fact that two of the major atrocities killing more than 100 people in Suruç and Ankara were caused by ISIS elements within Turkey where Kurds were
the targets, not the instigators. This strategy might not win
him many more Kurdish votes but it might help him win back enough of the
nationalist votes to attain his absolute majority.

Violence in Syria comes to Turkey

As
Çandar pointed out, the Turkish Kurdish problem is complicated by the
coexistence of the legal, political HDP and the long-standing Kurdish guerrilla
movement called the PKK. Until recently the Turkish government was engaged in a
so-called peace process with PKK
aimed at ending decades of violence. These negotiations fell apart when the HDP
emerged as a serious threat to Erdoğan’s political goals. The PKK says it
resumed its military activities in response to attacks by the state. Other
analysts say the PKK’s resumption of violence is a message to the HDP as well
as the Turkish state. “Don’t forget that
the road to peace in this region goes through Kandil,” the mountain in south
eastern Turkey that is the symbolic home of the PKK. This is just a hint of some
of the intra-Kurdish issues
frustrating anyone trying to understand the Kurdish problem, let alone resolve
it.

The
Kurdish question has been further complicated by the emergence just across the
border of a strong Syrian Kurdish group receiving international support for its
fight against ISIS. The Turkish state sees the potential development of an
autonomous Kurdish region next door in Syria as a threat to the very concept of
a unitary Turkish nation state because of its links to Turkey’s own Kurds. This
fear of a large Kurdish autonomous region encompassing Kurds in Turkey, Syria
and Iraq causes many sleepless nights in Ankara and explains in part why Turkey
is much more interested in stopping the Kurds than in fighting ISIS. This anxiety
is only increased as Turkish leaders recognize that they may not have much
say in the matter if an autonomous Syrian Kurdish region is accepted by the
international community as part of any resolution of the Syrian civil war.

Sunday’s
election has been played out in the context of this increasing instability with
ordinary citizens avoiding large crowds for fear of another bomb. These
incidents used to be limited to places like Baghdad or war-torn Syria. Now they
are closer to home as the mess in Syria spills over into Turkey. Erdoğan has
been successful in turning this election away from normal political issues and
into a question of Turkey’s security and stability. The question is who will
the voters blame for the widening divisions.

Erdoğan
is doing everything he can to lay the blame at the feet of what he calls a cocktailof terrorist groups – the PKK, the Syrian Kurds and ISIS. The
underlying message is that any vote for the HDP is a vote for this volatile cocktail, and that the only way to
guarantee the safety and security of Turkey is to return AKP – and himself --
to absolute power.

The
opposition lays the blame at the divisive, authoritarian figure of Erdoğan
himself and blames the instability on AKP’s failed domestic and international
policies – especially its muddled Syrian policy. The way forward, according to
the opposition, is to create a more democratic, open Turkey that relies on a
real rule of law rather than the rule of one man.

Sunday’s
election might answer the immediate
question of who is to govern the country. But resolving the longer term
question of how to reconcile the diverse groups within Turkey will require far
more statesmanship than the bombast we have been hearing for several years.

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About Me

I worked as a fund manager and investment banker in Turkey and the Middle East for 25 years. Over the years I have travelled extensively throughout the region and have met many of the leading government officials, business and cultural leaders. I am married to a Greek and now divide my time between London, Turkey, and an island in the Aegean.